Pharmacists save Doctors

[piskieinboots]

...due to illegible writing, says the news this morning.

Surely not!

[TPeers]

Well I can work out 94% of 4) and 95% of 5) what ever 4) and 5) are?

4 reads "Ped Flow to BP Nelly 94% Always/Althl"?

[kirsty b]

My GP prints prescriptions. Lovely not having to decipher hieroglyphics!!

Docs at work another matter entirely, sometimes notes are very difficult to read. Do you think they actually get taught abysmal handwriting during medical training?

[piskieinboots]

Our Doctors don't write scripts out anymore, they are computer generated. I would have thought all Surgeries are like that nowadays - but clearly not

[TPeers]

The reason for the handwritting is simple - while training and especially during university years the students have to write at over 100 words a minute to keep up with the lecturer. It destroys handwritting skills. And a habit once learned.......

[bluemoon]

Our GPs print them on computer now, but when I was in my teens our family GP had the most beautiful copperplate handwriting and always used a fountain pen. 'You have such lovely writing' my mum once told him. 'I know, I'm a disgrace to my profession' he said.

[dogsbody]

At last the GMC recognises we save their bacon on a regular basis.

GPs invariably use computers these days but this report relates to hospitals where very few have effective computerised prescribing (we are looking at three years from now IF the Trust Board can find the 500k it will cost to buy) so consequently they are all handwritten.

Doctor's handwriting should not contribute to the error rate too much as there are generally standards about printing / forming each letter individually etc. but it can......

[Florence Fennel]

I am happy to say that in my department at a Trust Hospital, we have had an electronic patient record in place for the last 20 + years and for at least the last 10 in the case of outpatients, the drugs are prescribed from that record electronically to the departmental pharmacy. In the case of an in patient stay, the same system is used but at the same time as a discharge summary is generated by a doctor on the ward. In all this time I have only ever seen two errors, which have been picked up before the drugs were dispensed.